Childe Harold's pilgrimage, a romaunt . y playful sprayAnd howling, to his Gods, where haply liesHis petty hope in some near port or bay,And dashest him again to earth: — there let him lay. CLXXXI. The armaments which thunderstrike the wallsOf rock-built cities, bidding nations monarchs tremble in their capitals,The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs makeTheir clay creator the vain title takeOf lord of thee, and arbiter of war,—Tliese are thy toys, and, as the snowy melt into thy yeast of waves, which marAlike the Armadas pride or spoils of Trafalgar. 234 CHILDE HAROLDS CANTO
Childe Harold's pilgrimage, a romaunt . y playful sprayAnd howling, to his Gods, where haply liesHis petty hope in some near port or bay,And dashest him again to earth: — there let him lay. CLXXXI. The armaments which thunderstrike the wallsOf rock-built cities, bidding nations monarchs tremble in their capitals,The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs makeTheir clay creator the vain title takeOf lord of thee, and arbiter of war,—Tliese are thy toys, and, as the snowy melt into thy yeast of waves, which marAlike the Armadas pride or spoils of Trafalgar. 234 CHILDE HAROLDS CANTO IV. CLXXXII. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee —Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ?Thy waters washed them power while they were free,And many a tyrant since; their shores obeyThe stranger, slave, or savage; their decayHas dried up realms to deserts: — not so thou,Unchangeable save to thy wild waves play —Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow —Such as creations dawn beheld, thou rollest CLXXXIII. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almightys formGlasses itself in tempests; in all or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or the pole, or in the torrid clime CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 235 Dark-heaving; — boundless, endless, and sublime —The image of Eternity—the throneOf the Invisible; even from out thy slime?The monsters of the deep are made; each zoneObeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. CLXXXIV. And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joyOf youthful sports was on thy breast to beBorne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boyI wantoned with thy breakers — they to meWere a delight: and if the freshening seaMade them a terror, t was a pleasing I was as it were a child of trusted to thy billows far and laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. CLXXXV. My task is done — my song hath ceased — my themeHas died into an echo ; it is fitThe spell should break of this protrac
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